NCT02572921

Comparison of Positive Psychotherapy and Cognitive-Behavioral Psychotherapy for Depression

Evaluation of the Positive Psychotherapy to Reduce Symptoms and to Promote Happiness With Depressive Patients Compared to Cognitive-Behavioral Psychotherapy

• Status: Unknown
• Phase: N/A
• Study type: Interventional
• Enrollment: 60 (estimated)
• Sponsor: University of Salzburg · Academic / Other
• Sex: All
• Age: 18 Years – 60 Years
• Healthy volunteers: Not accepted

Summary

This study evaluates the effects of the Positive Psychotherapy on depressive symptoms and on happiness compared with regular cognitive behavioral therapy.

Detailed description

Positive Psychotherapy (PPT) focuses on increasing well-being and positive emotions rather than ameliorating deficits in contrast to standard psychotherapy. A lack of positive emotions, engagement and felt meaning are typically viewed as consequences or mere correlates of depression, while the PPT suggests that these may be causal for depression. Therefore building positive emotion, engagement and meaning will alleviate depression. Thus PPT may offer a new way to treat and prevent depression. The aim of this study is to compare the effects of the Positive Psychotherapy on depressive symptoms, life satisfaction and happiness in comparison to standard cognitive behavior psychotherapy (regular cognitive behavioral therapy). 60 mildly to moderately depressed patients are randomly assigned to the Positive Psychotherapy group or the regular cognitive behavioral therapy group. Both treatments (primary intervention group and control group) are conducted in an outpatient group therapy setting with 14 sessions and a duration of 2-hours-per-week in small groups of 6 or 7 patients.

Conditions

• Depression

Interventions

Type	Name	Description
BEHAVIORAL	Positive Psychotherapy	The Positive Psychotherapy Group Treatment was developed by Martin Seligman and Tayyab Rashid (2013) and consists of 14 weekly group sessions of 2 hours. The strictly manualized program includes the following components: positive orientation and introduction, character strengths, signature strengths, good vs. bad memories, forgiveness, gratitude, satisficing vs. maximising, meaningful life, posttraumatic growth, hope and optimism, positive communication, signature strengths of others, savouring and slowness, altruism and the last session is about the integration of all these components to the "full life".
BEHAVIORAL	Cognitive behavioral therapy	This well-established, cognitive-behavior group therapy was developed by Schaub, Roth and Goldmann (2006) and consists of 12 weekly group sessions of 2 hours. The strictly manualized program includes the following components: education, building up activities, cognitive restructuring, relapse prevention. Moreover, there are 2 sessions added to the standard program: one session concerning savouring and the other one concerning stress reduction. Thus the whole program consists of 14 sessions.

Timeline

• Start date: 2014-05-01
• Primary completion: 2016-05-01
• Completion: 2016-07-01
• First posted: 2015-10-09
• Last updated: 2015-10-09

Locations

2 sites across 1 country: Austria